Frugal Friday, or Sunday

I forgot to schedule this to be published on Friday, so I'm a little late. It's not really much of a frugal season at our house right now, but a few wins here & there.

Saving on things we buy

• Used a $20 store reward to pick up things we need this week. Our menu & shopping list are bigger, with two other adults dining with us. The teens will also be home for more meals, so we're trying to plan accordingly. The local grocery store is pretty expensive, even with the $20 off. I bought: two packages of tortillas, two packages of tortilla chips, four packages of cheese (2 sliced, 2 shredded), four containers of sparkling water, frozen fries, four peppers, two containers of raspberries, 1 six pack of diet soda, salsa, & hamburger buns & spent $45.58 (after the $20 coupon). I had a free offer for the soda, and the sparkling water was buy 2/get 2 free. I also won another $1.50 in future rewards from the game they currently have going. I'll cash those in next time I go to the store. The soda is for my mom, as we don't keep soda at the house (or, drink it, really).  

Earning money

• Nick has stopped reffing, so I sold a pair of reffing shorts & two pair of socks for $15 on FB market place, and some gifted perfume for $30. Nick insisted on keeping another pair of the reffing shorts (they have pockets) for tennis. That's all well & good, but they are a youth small, and are real shorty short style on him. ;-) 

Avoiding spending

• I treated Sam to Subway (he loves it) on his last day of classes. They had a BOGO offer, so I also got a sandwich. I used a gift card for all of it. I don't typically order foot longs, but that was part of the deal. I had it for lunch two days in a row.
• Hung up the free graduation banner I picked up on Buy Nothing last summer. I'll save it for Nick, and then pass it along. 

Eating what we have

• Sam's girlfriend ate dinner with us two nights in a row, and I'll never say no to extra teens at the dinner table. I rounded out a last minute grilled chicken dinner with a larger salad, cut fruit & I reheated a foccacia bread we bought on Saturday. I brushed butter and coarsely ground salt over the top. Yum.
• For the other dinner with a bonus guest, I defrosted a second container of taco meat, so that fed us all for two dinners. 
• We've continued to use up lots of fresh garden produce: garlic scapes, mint, basil (purple Thai & regular), and two kinds of lettuce. Yum! The dastardly squirrels keep eating my strawberries, and dug out an entire squash plant. They drive me bananas!

For others

• I finished my volunteer training, which included a large section about preventing & reporting sexual assaults on minors. It was really difficult to get through, but I understand the importance of knowing about it, so you can appropriately report concerns. I'm now done & ready to be matched with a senior. 
• Gave away a bunch on Buy Nothing, continued my regular task of returning grocery carts to the corrals (they damage cars! and block spaces! and make it harder for seniors to get into and out of their cars). It's the little stuff. 

What about you? Any wins to share?